Quotes About Contemplation

It's the pausing and the stopping, perhaps going backward and losing some time, not being able to do everything we're supposed to do, that serves the soul. That's the enchantment that feeds the soul.

To be religious even in a personal way, you have to wake up and find your own portals to wonder and transcendence.

The moon looks upon many night- flowers, the night flower sees but one moon.

You look until you see nothing tangible, and that is God.

Taking an interest in one's own soul requires a certain amount of space for reflection and appreciation.

In every area of thought we must rely ultimately on our judgments, tested by reflection, subject to correction by the counterarguments of others, modified by the imagination and by comparison with alternatives.

Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do

Philosophick Work, to proceed at all smartly, wouldn't you agree, requires a controll'd working-space.

She faced that possibility as she might the toy street from a high balcony, roller-coaster ride, feeding-time among the beasts in a zoo—any death-wish that can be consummated by some minimum gesture.

Man, I want to die, is all," cried Ploy. "Don't you know," said Dahoud, "that life is the most precious possession you have?" "Ho, ho," said Ploy through his tears. "Why?" "Because," said Dahoud, "without it, you'd be dead." "Oh," said Ploy. He thought about this for a week.

could see that fatty mind grinding and figuring.

Seldom do people think things through foolishly. More often, they do not bother to think things through at all, so that even brainy individuals can reach untenable conclusions because their brainpower means little if it is not deployed and applied.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, unless you stop and think.

In the forest, in the forest, silence had cast a spell over all things. She plucked a great bouquet of daffodils and snowdrops, and tenderly held them to her, and tenderly kissed their fresh spring faces. She did not sing at all, but sat silent, expectant, and wondering, till her flowers faded and withered in her hands.

It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life, it is always sad. All that excitement and so on has a way of suddenly leaving you, and it's as though, in the silence, somebody called your name, and you heard your name for the first time.

I love to close my eyes a moment and think of the land outside, white under the mingled snow and moonlight--the heaps of stones by the roadside white--snow in the furrows. Mon Dieu! How quiet and how patient!

Oh dear, I sometimes think... whatever should I do if anything were to... But, there, thinking's no good to any one—is it, madam? Thinking won't help. Not that I do it often. And if ever I do I pull myself up sharp, "Now, then, Ellen. At it again—you silly girl! If you can't find anything better to do than to start thinking!...

I'd rather be alone with the bills, she thought as she pushed the elevator button. At least you know where you stand.

Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open.

When you are quiet, the silence blows against your mind and etches away everything that is soft and unimportant. What is left is what is real: pure awareness and the very hardest questions.

To see to the depth of a river, wade into still water. In the silent space under the slick of the world, the river clears. If you stand still too, so as not to wrinkle the water, you will see the shadows of minnows. You will smell sage and melting snow and you will notice, incised into the topography of the silt, little river channels pointing to the sea. And isn't this what you had hoped to find? A quiet place where everything comes clear and the Earth itself shows the way to the one thing.

Isn't that a kind of prayer? The care and maintenance of the web of our noticing, the paying heed?

There's mystery in my own back green - especially in my own back green!

Meditation is an activity of the mental consciousness. It involves one part of the mind observing, analyzing, and dealing with the rest of the mind.